Best Queues Poems
I got the Muse Blues
Where did my muse go
I got the muse blues
Tell me where did my muse go
Maybe down 'n Louisiana
Hangin' out with my friend Flo
I got the Muse Blues
My heart in a rage
I got the muse blues
My heart in a rage
Sayin' if muse try to act like Flo
Well He's gonna be upstaged
I got the muse blues
He's back but kinda sick
I got the muse blues
He's back but kinda sick
He tried to dance with Flo
And got his old butt kicked
I got some muse queues
If muse ever leaves again
I got some muse queues
If muse ever leaves again
Steer clear of Louisiana
And my pinnacle poetess friend
Protected by a pet Cheetah
So doth each nameless grain of sand
Deny the fate of those who went before
Believing there is purpose to their flow
As waves believe their haven is the shore
Idly they joust in momentary queues
Unable to resist time’s ebbing tide
Each grain a silent second paying dues
Destined to complete its senseless ride
Thus, pride becomes ensnared in ego’s dread
Of those who challenge reason’s need
Join the depleted ranks of reason’s dead
Believing somehow they will all be freed
Hold still, cling to your dream, the die is cast
Death’s hours will encompass first and last.
John G. Lawless
©6/16/2023
Broken England
By Steven Cooke
My Brave ancestors of England,
Look away, for I offend thee.
For your England is no more.
Decay eats away at this fallen empire.
Your people divided,
Its laws weakened by Europe’s power.
Its leadership, protecting the few.
The fresh air of your Country gone,
Only the stench of anarchy remains
Heroes of The Somme look away for I offend thee.
Stock Market Parasites, take without producing
Corporations overwhelm, the weak,
Without paying their due.
Their off shore havens digest the life blood of this once great nation,
Leaving the scraps of minimum wage for the masses to beg.
The dead of Pashendale look away for I offend thee.
Government legislate to keep us in bondage to 66
Over the hill at 50, to wonder the dole queues
Youth denied education,
Universities at a price,
Qualifications for the chosen few,
Unemployment, for the poor.
Our brothers of Gallipoli look away for I offend thee.
Our Cities are in pain.
Hopeless lives, with hopeless dreams,
Hopeless choices, drugs, crime,
Or silence behind closed doors.
Babies born to fail,
Children, exposed to depression and chips.
The ghosts of Arnhem look away for I offend thee.
A voice in the darkness, shouts its rage
The iron curtain of youth descends on England
This is no Lennon revolution,
This is youth with no future, abandoned by government
No rules here to obey, No Civic pride,
No sense of History, no Country to protect
The Saviours of Goose green look away for I offend thee
But fat cats beware, for there is a dream,
That cannot be bought.
A warning from history.
A country cannot go forward,
Without learning from the past.
Your greed will self destruct
Your Paradise a lie
For a Dangerous wind now blows,
And common sense, will fail.
For England is Broken,
And life will never be the same,
In England’s green and pleasant land.
Now It is my turn to look away,
for you see this offends me too.
Awoke with a feeling of deflation
The razzamatazz is over pressie’s given
Then a thought arouses me with a smile
Whilst the men watch the sport on this boxing day
A few cans in reach
We females can hit the sales with parking queues for a mile
Like a rugby match the people snatch and run
So much on offer, it’s all in the fun
You don’t try it you buy it cos it’s less than half price
A bargain is a bargain , wouldn’t usually look twice
You go home laden with things you know you’ll return
Was a bargain yet not quite what you yearn
Wearily you slip off your shoes with a big yawn
Food’s in the kitchen, help yourself, this maid is tooo worn
Been a wonderful day, so different from Christmas
Yet they both need each other to emphasise the past
Disco dreams and disco balls
Big city,bright lights
Pub crawls and bar fights.
Mini frocks and hair dyes
Made up faces
Mascara filled eyes.
Vodka martinis and champagne
Bus trips and black cabs
Standing in the rain.
Nightclubs and deejays
Entry stamps on wrists
And tattooed fists.
Late nights and hangovers
Fast cars and kebabs
White wine spritzers
And mishaps.
One night stands and live bands
Autographs and queues
Sing-a-longs and sad songs
And over packed loos.
One line gags and handbags
Glitter and sparkling eyes
Cigarettes and suffragettes
Gossip and lies.
Brawls,another one falls
Drunks and punks
Frilly skirts and love hurts
And late rides.
Secret kisses and front row seats
Cinema aisles
Red lipped smiles
Beauties and beasts.
Flashy cars and night time stars
Takeaways and glad rags
Silly jokes and whiskey cokes
Dreams and high hopes.
Nights out and walkabouts
Cheap thrills and teenage wonder
Hitch hikes and motorbikes
Delinquent lightning and thunder.
Like a street dog
Corruption runs miles and miles
to ensure it’s bread
with meat, chicken & fish
for drinking only milk,
And.........
If it will get a chance
It becomes a monster
which may eat you,
Your hand, leg, lungs, lever,
even your heart and soul.
Your family, society & country;
Your stature, name, fame everything
Digesting all your goal.
Standing on the top of mountain of money
It paints darkness
on the carcass of sky in day.
It enhances darkness of night
erasing all the crystal rays of moon
bringing water from drain of hell.
It tries to dig trance for light
on the lap of deep darkness
without giving any alarm
without ringing any bell.
It waits after preparing cemetery for them
Those, who are standing in queues
in front of his door,
keeping a thought to be rich making others poor.
Sometimes corruption stretches its wing
and becomes bullet of gun,
Enters into the chest of soldiers; just like rain,
Burns our soul, creating unbearable pain.
It enjoys life,
witnessing “Holi” with blood,
Celebrating “Diwali” with light of explosion,
Greeting Christmas, offering a bottle of poison,
And welcoming Id with a pot of tear of human.
Playing hide & sick with time,
It snores; sleeping on the bed of tears,
And paints glimpse of war & terrorism
staying in the house of death
having no windows and no door.
Cemetery cries enchanting the voice
fixing the warmth soul of every martyr
with a tight hug under the chest,
Collecting every tears of motherland
within the soul, wishing our best.
================================================
• ‘Holi’ is the festival of color & ‘Diwali’ is festival of light, celebrated in India.
I am a stranger in an alien land,
Always searching for eternal youth,
Controlled by an aristocracy with
Little time for honesty and truth.
The food banks are booming
Hardly a state of joy and glory
As the world prepares to celebrate
That age old Nativity Story.
A season of conspicuous Consumption,
A time of reflection and celebration
Or a time of struggles to survive for
A growing proportion of our nation.
Being black, unemployed or sick
Nowadays the modern day sin
As the homeless sleep rough and
Scavenge from the waste food bin.
The privileged will celebrate
The Holy Virgin Birth
And turn a blind eye to
The fast warming earth
The sick will die untreated in
The growing A and E queue
Only the thickness of a payslip
Stops that being me or you.
All over this rich nation
The comfortable will give thanks
And turn a seasonal blind eye
To queues at the food banks.
The Sovereign from the palace
Will give the annual address
Closely watched and monitored
By the billionaire owned free press.
The Sally Army Christmas, kitchen
Will feed some of the masses
And so another year of repression,
With false bonhomie, slowly passes.
I become more and more an alien
In this my own native born land
My world has changed completely
To one I can no longer understand.
Few things are as annoying as standing in line
Queues and waiting can be an ordeal for even the most patient
Always choose "the wrong line"
Some use courtesy that seems slick and superficial
We see bad queue culture at the store every day
It quickly becomes chaos during rush hour
when we are going home from work
Everybody going home
Impatience gives tightening in the chest
A wave of irritation and blood pressure rises
A reminder, must do an errand at the pharmacy
A queue number must be drawn
Can you imagine the lack of harmony
Be patient and let time take care
So slow down and appreciate the little things
02.02.2016
A-L Andresen :)
SINGAPORE LIMERICKS
1. The daughter
There once was a crusty old hawker
who married his neighbour’s fat daughter
She thought she’d be rich
But she did not know which
Was the reason behind why he’d sought her.
2. The laksa man
You’d have heard of the hawker named Tan
Who fried all his food in a pan
His clients set trends
And told all their friends
Now the queues almost stretch to Japan.
3. The Obese eater
Now here is an interesting stat,
If you stop by that stall for a chat
You’ll meet some police
Who are really obese
For the stall’s name is Soon Too Fatt.
4. Fasting: not
There once was a man so bullheaded
His eating hours always extended
He’d go to the stalls
But not in the malls,
And eat till his chest was distended.
5. Pizza
A cook who was trying to please
Cooked some pizza with far too much cheese,
He collapsed from the strain,
Said his doctor, "It's plain
You are killing yourself with the grease!"
6. The Bedok Disaster
A careless old cook from Bedok
One day had a terrible shock,
He turned on the stove,
In his hawker’s alcove,
And exploded with all of his stock
7. Who?
I know an old man we’ll call Choo,
As he cooked he would call out “Hoo Hoo,"
As the people walked by
They all wondered why,
But none of them had any clue.
8. The rescue
A hawker got stuck in his stall
Because he was terribly tall.
People asked what was what
With his head in a pot
But all he could do was to bawl.
"Dead Letter Queues"
In the In-Between time
the letters materialise
words lost, suspended
in the Forever Gloaming
(Lovejoy-Burton, August 2018)
Arm to arm, sinews clutch
One another, makes friend and crutch;
One crimson call, which guidance brought
The feeble, stern: the working lot
To stand much greater, taller, strong
Filled with hope, in lines long,
That stretch from pain, from glum, from slum
To the halls of white where nations clump
In the deadest form of gathered hoards
Of finance and shares, secluded boards
Who array the work, who shackle in loans
Whose empty plots tempt the sleeping droves
In tent and rag, in cough and drag,
From hand to mouth, to work and back.
Yet in contempt that line is struck,
Still the routine is mute, no more this work
That builds the villa, never the mason’s,
Unthanked which blooms the fields all season,
The folks split off by plastic partition
Giving wealth immense, yet maimed cognition
Had kept whom bound to desk and ground
Their eyes have met and their fists now pound
Against steel ribbed doors, but why such fear
Thee lords of land in prim kept highest tiers?
Arisen so, on the claim of wealth,
At the cost of Earth, of hearth and health;
How much more flight, behind guarded holds,
Behind sentries and dictates so cold
Even in scorch of war, where poor kills poor;
So the wealth of nations in tons can pour
Onto odd few hands, to hold all us chained
To the will of profit, for profit’s sake.
But in queues, we’ve come, tools shucked
Your batons brooked, your shots shrugged
By the calloused bossom, by tried spine,
That props all of it up, runs it all in time.
And without us many, your wealth is rust,
Without our trust it’s all a fleeting gust
Of paper slips and accords of force
And we see dawn, from these dues divorced.
And the sun to snatch, the sickle drives,
And the barricades the hammer tries,
While the quill writes, not fearing death,
A push for renewal, for a gasp of breath.
Creaky bones,
I must be getting old.
Creaky bones,
But I will not be told.
Creaky bones,
Those stairs are hard to climb.
Creaky bones,
I will not moan and whine.
Creaky bones,
Bending to tie up shoes.
Creaky bones,
Waiting in those long queues.
Creaky bones,
Once young, now aging fast.
Creaky bones,
Soon I’ll have that free bus pass.
Creaky bones.
I accuse
Bankers who compulsively their creditors lure
Bid them colossal loans and obscure
To erect fantasies and a castle in Spain forge
Later arise manacled with a dolor mortgage
Employees who secretly squeeze through
Evacuate their jobs unattended and eschew
Occupy hours galore in cafés gossiping
With prolonged queues jilted lingering
Doctors who diagnose organic diseases
Shirk fragile,grief-stricken souls
Administer drugs to accrue vulnerability
Burden their expenses and nurture insanity
Entrepreneurs who hatch gigantic edifices
Reap colossal sums of almighty dollars
Abjure to construct a hovel for the beggary
To harbor their rat-infested despondency
Yet could medication be of any use
To what a whole epoch has abused ?
Abdelwaheb Dhaou.
Japan, land of rising SUN
Faced Natures devastation
Tsunami, earthquake obliterated cities
Lost all but not hope, maturity, sanity
Collective harmony, community first attitude
No honking, no mad overtaking; only understanding on jammed roads
No shoplifting when lights fused in malls
Mature media, compassionate humanity
No bloodcurdling visuals of chest beating or wild grief
No hypocrisy of help by Politicians
Well cultivated patience, doggedness to move on
Relief work, removal of debris, building roads at amazing speed
No mass scale panic on tanking of stocks, yen vulnerability
Cultured dignity, dignified grace
Disciplined queues for water, groceries, no chaotic scenes, squabbles
People buying to meet present need, so everybody could get something.
High moralistic Human values
Restaurants cut prices, no burglary at unguarded ATM
Plain speak on Nuclear threat levels
Japanese have done it before
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings could only maim not rein
Tsunami and earthquake could only dissolve few cities not their resolve
Crisis handling, innate to Japanese
God gave volcanoes
They marshalled art of baking on it rather than getting charred
Japan, the land of rising SON
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Hitendra Mehta
May 2011
For Members Contest - Trubute to Japan by Debbie Guzzi
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
People walking head down staring into their cell phones
In pairs or all alone
Children pushing their children in buggies and prams
Traffic wardens and traffic jams
Zombies trying to walk through you with masses of shopping bags
Gangs of girls gangs of lads
Shop window displays to entice
Everything from ladies knickers
Toys and carving knifes
Shoppers sat in fish tanks having tea
Long queues at the bakery
Pregnant girls in tight fitting skimpy clothes
People with tattoos and rings through their nose
Police officers out for a gentle walk on a summers day
While the robbers elsewhere make a clean get away
Unruly children screaming
Clouds of choking cigarette smoke
People laughing telling jokes
Shoppers taking a rest on a bench
Old men staring at young wench
A busker playing the same song over and over on guitar
For pennies hoping someone passing
Will make them a star
Street vendor vultures prey on the unaware
''Have you had an accident''? money signs in their eyes
Bad accident they don't care
Gangs of people stood in shop doorways
So you can't get in
Lads like me trying to impress the girls
and holding our beer bellies in
Bargain here bargain there
This weeks special offer managers special
A broken chair
Knuckle dragger unshaven smelly men
With model looking babes how on earth do they get them?
Free passes to the gym if you're fat we''ll make you slim
Bumping into people that you know
Hows uncle Howard and his poorly toe
A glimpse of life on a weekend in town
Don't miss a bargain get on down.
Peter Dome.Copyright.2015.May.